Jun and Shang
by AbbiDaSquirrel
Summary: In the futuristic world of the Lunar Chronicles, Cinder, Scarlet, Cress and Winter aren't the only ones experiencing their Once Upon a Times. Jun and Shang never had it easy, but when they start working at a swanky candy shop, they never realized things could get much, much worse.
1. Part 1: Breadcrumbs

_A/N: before anyone accuses me of stealing this idea. This story was written and posted to dA and Pinterest back in August, before the other one was posted here. With the exception of it being fanfiction, this story is original, and my own idea. That being said, you should go check out Greta, another Lunar Chronicles retelling of Hansel and Gretel, because it's pretty cool :D_

_I have a series of fairytale retellings set in the Lunar Chronicles world set up. I wrote this back a while ago for the Pinterest contest, the cover art is mine. Since writing this, I've been working on the other ones simultaneously, which is why I have yet to finish any. (Go to chapter three and scroll to the bottom if you're interested in seeing a description of the upcoming fairytale retellings I have set!) _

_Each of these stories is told from different perspectives, usually the heroine's. Jun is rather cynical and dry, hence the narrative._

_EDIT: I also fixed a chronology/dating error, thanks to the person who alerted me to it!_

_Anyway, hope you enjoy!_

* * *

"Name?" the android droned. Its black sensor flashed before I could reply and answered the question for me.

_"Lín Jenzhu_

_Age: 14 _

_Sex: Female _

_Born December 12th of the 112th year T.E. _

_Race: Half-Asian_

_Daughter to Lín Damian: Woodsman, and Lín Song: Deceased_

_Sister to Lín Shangdi_

_Residence: Shílín, China_

_Current marital status-"_

"Yes, yes, I know who I am." I spat, becoming agitated just listening to the thing "speak".

"This is all correct?"

I nodded in confirmation. "I'd prefer to be called Jun, though."

It blinked a few times, its computer whirring inside it, and gestured for me to follow it behind the counter. Behind me, Shang was getting a similar interrogation by the floating android's partner. I winked at him and he stuck his tongue out at me, typical Shang style.

I rolled my eyes and ducked into the kitchen where the android was hovering. "This is where we bake the pastries. For the sake of simplicity, we keep all baking on this side of the kitchen, and candy-making on the other. Understand?"

"Yeah, sure. Pastries on one side, candy on the other."

"Correct." the bot stated blandly and continued through the kitchen. Yawning, I took a good look around the room and wished I'd gone to sleep earlier the night before. My father made Shang and me listen to Mei whine all night long about our manners. We told her that we'd work harder to be polite in the hopes she'd shut up, but it didn't help and she continued to complain about every mistake we'd ever made.

I hated Mei. I hated her the moment father introduced her to us. She was vile and mean and called me sugar, despite the fact I'd told her time and time again to stop. Shang, not to be out-done by me, despised her even more. He called her "The Witch" behind her back and made faces when he thought she wasn't looking. In his defense, it was incredibly funny.

Despite my contempt for Mei, she had a point. Shang and I weren't the most well-behaved children. Our father tried to convince us that she was only trying to help out with our interviews. "She's gone out of her way to get you this job, she doesn't want you two to ruin a great opportunity on your first day," he'd explained.

At that point, I'd been too sleepy to care and nodded in agreement. "Stars above, dad, I get it, we both get it." and with that it was over.

Shang and the other android filed into the kitchen behind us. He got the same speech, word-for-word, as I did, crinkling his nose and ignoring the robot. I think he was thinking the same one thought as me: we'd never smelt something this good before in our lives. Even the scent of our father's homemade mooncake couldn't compare to the mouth-watering aromas wafting in and out the kitchen.

"Are you listening?" the black android suddenly snapped at me. I jolted back to reality and realized I'd been day-dreaming about all the delectable goodies that were in store for me at Breadcrumbs.

Breadcrumbs- who on earth would name their shop Breadcrumbs? In fact, who on Luna, who in the entire galaxy would name their shop Breadcrumbs? It lacked any charm whatsoever. Even the market stores named after the owners had more creative names. Shang had joked that they'd only named the shop Breadcrumbs because they were picking from the breadcrumbs left behind by the big chain-store companies, but no doubt his opinion had changed like mine once we'd stepped into the shop. It was massive, two whole stories, and more like a restaurant than a bakery. There were three large counters displaying hundreds of heavenly-looking candies, sweets, cakes, and treats. There were candied apples, gourmet lollipops, rich chocolate figures, soft almond biscuits, scrumptious blueberry tarts, every sweet you could imagine and more. I wanted to be a three-year old kid with their face plastered against the glass of the counter, gazing with gluttonous thirst at the food. There were plenty of children doing just that, drool hanging out the corners of their mouths as their parents tried to drag them away. One child had started a tantrum because his mother wouldn't buy him one of the strawberry cupcakes. Apparently he had an allergy to strawberries, but that didn't seem to be changing his mind.

It occurred to me I'd spaced out again. If the android in front of me had a face, I'm sure it would have been glaring, "Are you done slobbering all over the food, now?" he demanded, almost sarcastically.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, can I start now?" I wondered impatiently.

Shang popped up behind me with his own annoying ball of wires. "Can we? Can we? I'm so freaking booored," he drew the word out as if that would somehow emphasize his point.

The floating white android behind him made a tutting sound and zipped off in the opposite direction. We turned to the other bot begging with our eyes. it must have been programmed with some sort of merciful personality because before we knew it, both Shang and I had a job working at Breadcrumbs Pastry and Treat Emporium. We would switch between working the register with Khan, the black android, and baking the food in the back with the larger worker androids. Na Rin, the white manager droid that had been instructing Shang handed us our uniforms programmed our ID chips to register on the store's interface.

It went like that for a few weeks. We'd wake up as early as five in the morning and head to Breadcrumbs, work a fifteen-hour day, go straight home, to bed without any dinner. After all our work, we were too tired for a meal.

Once we'd started, we barely ever saw dad. He was always either working in the woods or out with Mei.

Mei was another story, we saw her all the time. She came to visit her family working at Breadcrumbs on a regular basis, but I think it was just a weak excuse to spy on us. Whenever she wasn't nagging us at work, though, she was at our house, chastising us for coming home late, treating her with disrespect, or any other silly reason she could think up. It was exhausting and Shang and I grew into the habit of sneaking in through our bedroom window so we wouldn't have to encounter her.

Shang and I both had different reasons for working at Breadcrumbs, but we shared one main goal: help earn money for the family. I'd had a job working a booth in the village, but apparently, I was too "cynical" and didn't work well with the customers. My employment had only lasted two weeks. Shang had little ways of picking up money here and there. He often tried to perform in the city streets, but that usually just got him into trouble.

But even though helping my family stay afloat was important to me, I had one driving motivation that kept me working at Breadcrumbs: I wanted a gown.

It was the first year my dad promised I could go to the annual peace festival ball. He'd even bought me a train ticket to New Beijing in advance. I'd read many of the blog posts about previous balls of years past on all the gossip websites before, but I'd never been to one. The only problem I seemed to be facing was my lack of proper dress.

No one would be let in looking like a raggedy hoodlum, I needed a gown, and I'd had my sights set on the exact one for a year. It was from Cho's Seamstress shop in the marketplace. She made the most stunning dresses, and her crown jewel was the high-collared, red satin gem that stood on display in the shop's window. It was over 1,500 univs, far too much for anyone in Shílín. It's a poor town, full of miners and woodsmen, like my father, who work out in what's left of the forests. The only people who could afford a ball gown like Cho's lived on the other side of town, where Breadcrumbs was, and none of the privileged rich snobs would even dare to sully their feet by stepping in our marketplace. Thus, the dress had been untouched, sitting in the display window for more than a year, collecting dust. Before working at Breadcrumbs, I'd managed to save up a couple hundred univs, but other than that, I'd have to earn the rest from what little I could save of my Breadcrumbs wages, and most of that went to keeping the house in order, and food on the table.

After a few weeks of working at breadcrumbs, father announced that Mei would be moving in with us officially. As if she hadn't already with all the redecorating she'd been doing around our house. Shang groaned, "But dad, she doesn't even have a job, we can barely afford to feed the three of us and now she's going to move in, too?!"

Dad scowled, "We are very lucky to have Mei, she comes from a wealthy family and she loves all of us very much. You should stop whining and be thankful she thought I was cute." He turned to Mei and grinned. She muffled a giggle and pecked him on the cheek.

I wanted to barf, I hadn't seen my dad act like a googly-eyed teenager since mom was alive. Shang stood beside me, grimacing. "You've got to be kidding me!" he wailed, once we'd returned to our room. "Stars above, she's horrible! She's so rude to him, always patronizing us and putting us down. Why doesn't he see how bad she is?"

I collapsed on my bed. "He's a guy. All he sees is her pretty face and giant boobs. Besides, he's probably just happy he can find a girl who will want him. I love dad and everything, but he's always so depressed and mopey."

"Yeah, I guess," Shang mumbled, "Still, I wish he could've found a nice woman with money, rather than a stupid, mean one with money."

Our lives continued in a similar fashion. Only now, Mei was worse than ever. She even made our father get rid of all our pictures of mom. "You think I want to see her, here? She's all over the house, Damian! Do you want me to feel worthless? Like I'm your mistress?" She'd screeched.

As if her logic was somehow flawless, our dad agreed and succumbed to her will. He became her dog, doing anything she'd ask.

I thought everyone might be a little cheerier once I'd earned the 1,500 univs I needed for the dress, but the second I brought it home, Mei looked at it with disgust and pinched the delicate satin bodice with two sharp black talons. "Who said you could buy this? We all know you couldn't possibly afford a dress, even this trash! Did you steal from me? Hm?" she snarled. "Is that how you bought this piece of garbage?" She ripped it from my hands in anger and I never saw it again.

I tried to tell father, but she got to him first, blabbering about my ungratefulness, my robbery. I was so close to losing it, even Shang was furious.

But then everything changed.

Shang and I were kidnapped.


	2. Part 2: Prisoners

We were ordered to go down to the basement after we ran out of powdered sugar. It was dark, the lights didn't come on when we walked in. They didn't even flicker when we tried to switch them on manually. I tried to feel around for the shelves.

Someone grabbed me from behind. I heard Shang yelp, but I couldn't see where he was. A muffled glove came over my face and I felt drowsy. I finally fell unconscious when a metal bat bashed up against my head.

As I drifted off into dream-land I could feel warm liquid dripping down my face, and a pinching in my arm.

I woke up first. The room was dark, but not pitch black. I felt around and found Shang beside me, breathing steadily. I must have been wearing some sort of restrictive jacket because I could barely move past Shang. I could feel metal circlets around my hands, joined together magnetically, the same on my feet as well. Some sort of plastic gag was wedged in my mouth, making my jaw ache. It felt like hours before someone finally came to get us, but it was probably only minutes. It was so quiet, I could hear my heart pounding, like an echo that never faded.

Shang woke up beside me at the sound of the footsteps, muttering nonsense to himself. A rough hand- or maybe it was a glove- yanked me up by my hair and dragged me to another dark room. I could hear Shang struggling against someone behind me.

It wasn't until they removed the cloth over my face that I realized it hadn't been dark, I'd just been wearing a blindfold. Glancing over at Shang, I tried to give him a reassuring look, but he only quivered, tears pooling in his eyes.

The men, some were women, I think, were wearing thick black masks. Their bodies were covered in some sort of hard, black, form-fitting suit. "Before we remove the gags, you must know that if you speak a single word out of turn we will shoot."

I strained my neck to get a good look at the room. It was cramped and square, stark white and made entirely of tiles. I couldn't tell where the entrance was, if there even was one. Besides the two in front of us, there for four guards stationed around the room. Each one had a large gun in their hands, and two smaller ones holstered at their thighs, with what looked like knives sheathed at their hips.

Tears ran from Shang's eyes as he yelled against the gag. He received a merciless blow to the head from a metal black stick the second assailant was holding and shut up instantly.

The first person glared at me from the glass slits in his mask and I nodded in understanding. He removed the gags and began to speak. "We are representatives of the organization Humans for Humans. We are often referred to as an underground hate group, but we prefer to think of ourselves as a human cleanser, we harbor no hate for those with a soul. Our undercover spy, Ms. Wu, who you know better as Mei Quing, has confirmed that you are indeed of the lunar race, like your mother, Song Lín, who was disposed of five years ago, is that correct?"

He was so straightforward. I couldn't say I word. I was stunned. Who were these people, and how could they know? Nobody knew! Our father had kept the secret so well! What did they mean about my mother? She had died of letumosis. A thousand thoughts whirred through my brain like a giant swarm of bees.

I was suddenly bashed in the head by a guard. I could hear my brain reverberating in my ears with a sickening thud. "Answer the question. Is the previous statement correct?" he repeated.

I bit my lip so hard I could taste blood and mumbled through my teeth. "No."

Shang whipped around to look at me, fear practically oozing from his face.

"You understand that if you lie, by the HfH Code of Conduct we are permitted to use force or any form of torture we feel is necessary to get the truth? We are also given permission to dispose of you in such a way that may be deemed as inhumane? Not that you _are_ human, of course."

My mouth stayed sealed shut until in one swift movement, the second figure standing in front of us pulled the knife from its sheath at her side and held it beneath my jaw. I could feel its pin-point blade jabbing at my skin. "Answer the question" the figure uttered with a sinister bark. I instantly recognized the voice. It was Mei. I could feel Shang staring at the two of us with disbelief.

"We are not lunar." I lied through my teeth, barely opening my mouth to speak for fear of cutting myself against Mei's blade.

The man sighed and looked to the guard in the far right corner. In a flash, he aimed his gun directly at Shang.

I didn't even think, "We are! I lied! We are lunar! WE'RE LUNAR!" the words spilled out of my mouth before I could even think about what I was saying. Shang sat frozen beside me, he didn't even turn his head to look at the gun behind him.

No one had ever known our secret. Our mother had escaped from Luna with her family at a young age. She was the only survivor when their ship crashed. Our father had helped her acclimate to society, he even got her an ID chip and a job. No one knew a thing. How could anyone know?

I could almost feel the man smiling from behind his mask. "Indeed. Are you aware that your father has been seized for harboring lunar fugitives and is being questioned by our men at this very minute?"

"We aren't fugitives! What did you do to him? Where is our dad?"

"Answer the question, sugar." Mei growled with a false sense of endearment.

My eyes twitched. "No and we aren't fugitives!"

"We never said you were. Are you aware of the fact that your father is sympathetic to the lunar plight and has been harboring escaped lunars within the walls of your own home?" He paced in front of us, speaking as if he were detailing things from a to-do list.

"H-he wouldn't do that! He's just a woodsman! Please, you don't understand, we've done nothing wrong! We just-"

A blast louder than any firework I'd ever heard echoed throughout the room. Shang cried out in agony, attempting to clutch his foot with his restrained hands.

"What did you do?! What did we do?! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'M SORRY!"

I felt a stinging zap pound through my body. Suddenly, I was on the floor, convulsing, as electricity crackled and popped in my veins. Another guard stood above me, handling an electrocuted paddle. Shang was still shrieking, I couldn't move. How could this have happened? What did we do?!

"That will be all for now." the man stepped over my paralyzed body and exited through some hidden door, followed by Mei. A guard stayed behind to pull me off the floor and then we were left to our own weeping selves.

"Shang?" I croaked. "Shang, are you okay?"

He didn't reply, only moaned. "Please, Shang, answer me!"

"M-my foot..." he murmured, I almost didn't catch it, "I can't...I...I can't move it."

"Oh no, no, no. This is all my fault. I'm so sorry Shang, I just. I don't understand what is going on."

We sat there for hours. At least, I think it was hours. Time passes so differently when you're aware of it. No one came to help Shang with his foot, but I did my best to pull the shrapnel out. I couldn't get much, every time I tried to, he would fall over again, yelping. Once I got the largest pieces out, the wound wouldn't stop bleeding.

I've never wished more in my life for some sort of Lunar power within me to spring free in that moment. If I'd ever used it before, I'd been unaware, it had been unintentional. Our mother never used her powers in front of us, though Shang once told me he thought she was always wearing her glamour. She never taught us anything about ourselves and even if she had planned to, she died- was killed- before she had the chance.

Shang eventually passed out from blood loss while I tried desperately to remember how to stop it. My father explained it to me once. All the woodsmen were trained to heal injuries. Working out in those forests was one of the most dangerous jobs humans still had. The worst ones were usually done by androids.

After hours of tears and sweat and blood, a new guard finally walked in. They were just as rough with us, but they bandaged Shang's foot and gave us both some sort of shot. He wiped the blood off the floor with a rag like it was just spilled water. I still don't know what it was supposed to do.

I think it was a man, it sounded like a man. He was alone and he even answered a few questions, though most were just met with silence.

"Who are you people?"

Nothing.

"What do you want with us?"

More silence.

"Why do you hate the Lunars?"

That perked him up a little. "You don't have souls, you aren't human. Earth is for humans not you rats."

"But we're just kids, Shang is barely thirteen." I countered.

He didn't reply.

"How did you know about us?"

"We got an anonymous tip. Wu infiltrated and confirmed." He stated flatly.

"Who tipped you off? Nobody knew!"

"We didn't know about you, just that your father was harboring the criminals." he replied, but didn't answer the question.

"Do you even feel bad? Do you feel remorse for shooting a child?"

"I didn't shoot him." his voice was so steady.

"My mother...we were told she died of letumosis. I even saw her before she died, she was so sick..."

"The blue plague has no effect on Lunars, but we've developed a poison that can create similar effects on you."

So...had they really killed her? Was my mother really murdered?

"Did you people kill her?"

He pulled some sort of medical spray from his kit and sprayed Shang's bandages. "Yes."

The sound resonated through the room. All I could hear was Shang's steady breathing and the echo of his "yes" bouncing off the tiles.

He got up and dusted himself off, casting a dirty look at Shang's peacefully sleeping face. "Wait, wait!" I called, I still had so much to ask him.

That didn't stop him though, he started for one of the walls, but not before I blurted out, "Are you going to kill us?"

He finally stopped, an actual reaction. For a moment, he just stood there, as if in some sort of suspended reality. His hesitation made me tense.

He pursed his lips and answered, "Yes."


	3. Part 3: Fire

I think we were in there for a week or so, keeping track of time was difficult. We never saw dad, and we were never moved from the room. Once Shang was able to stand, we spent the entire day clawing at the walls, in search of some exit. We knew there was one in there, how else was everyone coming and going? They wouldn't let us watch them leave so we couldn't even figure out which side of the room the door would be on.

They usually came in once or twice each day. We got one meal, usually something unidentifiable. I think it was all powdered supplements. Then, before they left they asked questions.

There were so many questions. We couldn't answer most of them. They were usually about our family on our mother's side, life on luna, bioelectric powers, and any weaknesses we might have. Sometimes they asked about our dad's suspicious behavior. I guess we'd never noticed it since he'd always been that way, but they were right. Our father was definitely helping escaped lunars. he'd been doing it for years, right beneath our noses. Shang and I didn't even know we had a basement, but apparently, over thirty lunar refugees had lived in it in the past five years.

We had never noticed that our dad left home much earlier and came back way later than any of the other woodsmen in Shílín. We never gave a second thought to our family's inability to consistently feed just three of us. We never even wondered why our father had been so insistent that we take the job at Breadcrumbs.

They never shot at us again, but the sharp zing of their electric prods became a common punishment for silence. I had bruises all over my back, and my head always rang from the blows they dolled out with their iron fists.

I'm ashamed to admit that nearly every thought I had in that prison was a selfish one. All I could think of was _my_ own pain, _my_ own conflicted feelings, how _I_ would die. I never once wondered what would happen to Shang or dad, but I still did my best to keep him calm. I never told him what the guard had said, I didn't want to frighten him any more than he already was.

My thoughts often wandered to dreams of the ball I would never go to, the dress I'd never wear, the nobles- and the prince, who I'd never meet. It must sound silly to think of something so superficial at such a time, but it kept me calm. It kept me from pulling the hairs out of my head and scratching my eyes out. It kept me from throttling every guard who came in and demanding they let us out, even though I desperately wanted to.

But their hands were always curled into fists. Or at their sides, their fingers dancing on the handles of their guns. I knew better.

It had been about seven days when the sirens went off. Both of us had been asleep, and we jerked awake with a start. Shang cried out for dad before he gained his bearings and I felt a stinging in my palm.

Red light flashed all throughout the room. The white walls reflected it, crimson bouncing off of every surface. We could hear some sort of far-off scuffle going on, and a yelp. I think it was dad.

When I realized it had nothing to do with us, I relaxed.

But the calm was gone in seconds. Right outside the room we could hear the faint voice of of The Witch, Mei. "Gas the room."

Shang jumped up. "Did you hear that? We have to get out."

I slumped. "We tried that Shang, what are we supposed to do? Bust through the walls?"

"You heard what she said! They're gonna gas us! What if they're gonna kill us?"

I almost yawned. The idea had been sitting in my head all week and suddenly it just didn't resonate with me the way it had before. I bit my lip. "Some other prisoner probably tried to get out." Dad. "They don't want us to hear or see anything, it's probably something to knock us out."

Shang sniffed the air. "It smells nasty. Is that it? Is that the gas?"

I nodded, "Probably."

"How can you just sit there? We have to get out, we have to get free!"

It occurred to me just how young Shang really was. He was only thirteen, so small and so full of innocent naivety. I'd always seen him as an equal, or even, on a few occasions, an older brother, rather than a younger one. Our hard lives had forced us to grow up so fast, and now, here he was, being the child he really was inside. I stood up and walked to the wall to humor him.

"Thanks goodness," he breathed, "I thought they'd driven you insane!"

I mumbled curses under my breath as my fingertips tore at the white tiles, now bathed in red. It almost looked as though they were bleeding, running with red.

I yanked my hand off the wall and examined my palm. Little tiny crescents of blood were oozing with crimson. My fingers curled into the shape of a fist and lined up with the cuts.

I knew. I was still angry. My body knew, but brain just hadn't registered it yet.

With a renewed vigor, I pounded at the wall, shrieking every curse and every insult I knew.

They killed my mom.

They took my dad.

They hurt my brother.

They took away our freedom.

The mumbling outside the room became louder, they were coming closer.

I pressed my ear against the wall, and sure enough, I could hear them.

"Shang, I think the entrance is on this side!" He rushed over and together we inspected every tiny inch of the wall, each crack between the tiles, everything.

"Here!" Shang yelled, pointing right in front of him. "I think the gap between this row of tiles is larger than the others!"

Before I could see what he was gesturing to, a feeling of drowsiness came over me and I collapsed to the ground. A wave of nausea weighed down on me.

"Jun!" yelled Shang, but he sounded so muffled, so far away. Seconds later he keeled over, too. The gas that had been filling the room was so much thicker now. It was so opaque I could barely see Shang's face, just inches from mine.

The voices outside the room became screams. "I told you to light it up!" Mei ordered.

"But we haven't finished questioning them yet! We were told not to touch them!" A second voice squeaked.

"I am your commanding officer and you are my subordinate! If I say ignite the room, I mean ignite the goddamn room!" roared Mei.

"They aren't even unconscious yet!"

"Hell if I care, the other one is being dealt with right now, we need to get rid of these pests, too!"

Through the haze of fog and sleep, a single thought echoed through my mind: escape.

I just kept concentrating. Staring at that wall, at the gap in the tiles.

I thought of the guard on the other side. I didn't know what he looked like, but I imagined someone weak and mousy. I kept trying to will the door to open but as much as I stared, it wouldn't budge. Shang was barely moving now, I could only see his eyes, blinking slowly through a wall of mist. "Open." I whispered. "_Please, open_."

Blinding light flooded the room as the row tiles slid to the floor.

On the other side of the doors, Mei went ballistic, grabbing the smaller guard by the collar and ripping his mask off. "WHY WOULD YOU OPEN THEN DOOR?! WHY?!"

"I-I don't...I d-don't understand!" he stuttered in reply.

I tried to stand, but the movement caught the Witch's eye. "Don't you dare move you disgusting piece of-"

She tripped. I don't know how, but I just wanted her to fall, to feel our pain, and she tripped. She tumbled into the room, along with the guard she was clutching and squawked like a bird.

In that single instant, with the gas clearing out into the hall, I mustered everything I had left and grabbed Shang's almost lifeless body off the floor.

Mei tried to catch my foot, but she kept stumbling, woozy from inhaling the poisonous gas. "You bitch! You scum! You have no soul! You are nothing!" She lost her footing and fell onto herself, coughing.

Coughing, I dragged Shang out of the room, Mei and the guard cursing behind us. I couldn't feel any pain anymore. There was only nothing.

Outside the square room there was a metal panel attached to the wall, hundreds of buttons, all different colors and shapes. I took one last look at Mei inside the prison and pressed the biggest one in the center.

A roaring explosion thundered out of the opening. Everything was orange and red. Everything was heat. Everything was pain.

My fingers fumbled for the panel, pressing every button I could feel until the door finally sealed shut. I could hear their cries of torment loud and clear, even with the door shut. But it was still sweltering. The fire had caught outside of the prison room and was speeding all down the hall. Shang stirred in my grasp and I slapped him as hard as I possibly could. He lunged up and together we ran. Faster than we'd ever run before. The heat of the flames licking at our feet.

I could see all the other prisons in the building as we ran. Some had the white tiles, other were only guarded with a sheet of glass. Some of the prisoners -other Lunars, like us- pressed their faces against the wall to look at us, but we took no notice.

A staircase sat at the end of the hallway. I glanced only once at the room right beside it. White tiles, just like ours. Through a one sided window I could see an inferno blazing within, and a tall blackened figure flailing behind it.

Even now, I still try to convince myself that it's not my father.

At the top of the stairs, we saw doors, we saw light.

We also saw a guard.

It was just one, I guess all the others were trying to find us or stop the searing fires spreading through the building. He tensed into some kind of battle position, and had Shang in a headlock in mere seconds. There wasn't much struggle, but that overpowering fury I'd felt before propelled me forward. The guard careened over the railing and down the stairs below without a single push from me.

Shang sat up, gaping at me. "You're blue! You're blue and you're sizzling!"

My heart was racing, this feeling coursing through my veins. He was right, crackling blue lighting bolts were charging up and down my arms.  
"How did you do that?!" He exclaimed. "You just looking at him and he..."

The Lunar gift. I could see it in his eyes. He knew.

"No time, now. We have to get out!"

We flew to the exit, and burst through the door. The frame crumpled behind us, engulfed in the flames I'd let escape.

We were somewhere remote. There weren't any woods or trees nearby, but the area looked familiar, it was still Shílín.

We slumped in front of the fallen building, breathing heavily as smoke danced in front of us.

A few miles past the empty hills we sat on, I could see dainty lights twinkle from the city.

"I think tonight is the festival!" Shang puffed between gasps. "Sorry you missed your ball." He smiled cheekily.

"Don't worry. They're the same every year. I didn't miss anything important. It's not like anyone is going to crash the ball or anything." I winked.

We hugged and I knew that it was over. We were safe. We were free.

* * *

_A/N Wow! I hope you liked that! Yes, the ball is the same one Cinder went to, if you didn't quite catch that._

_This was originally written back in August for the Lunar Chronicles Pinterest contest. You can also read it here:_

_ #/art/Jun-and-Shang-395639453?hf=1_

_ abbidasquirrel/lc-by-me/ (My pinterest board was a finalist in the contest. Scroll through to see more Lunar Chronicles stuff, and this story itself!)_

_Other retellings currently under way:_

_Pea: A retelling of Princess and the Pea. I currently have the coverart posted on the pinterest board and to my dA page. Pea follows the story of a blind fighter girl living Toulouse. She was perfectly content living her shady, mysterious life, until the day she approached by a mysterious man. He promises her the prize of a lifetime if she can beat him in a fight. The catch? He gets to choose the arena. Pea thinks this will be easy, she's never lost a single fight in her life. But she's left quite surprised when she enters the arena for the first time. Story is currently half-finished_

_Gem: A retelling of Goldilocks. Gem was a Lunar fugitive who escaped to earth before her sentencing. Now she lives a life of robbery in America. All that changes when she gets tangled up in the affairs of the dangerous gang/mafia-type group called B.E.A.R. Currently half-finished._

_Khalil: Coverart is finished and posted to my dA account and pinterest. A retelling of Thumbelina. Khalil Sagheer Mehta was a lively girl...that is, until she died. Her grieving mother crafted an incredibly high-tech personal android, who looked, acted, and even thought like Khalil. But soon, Khalil will learn she even more than just a plain old android.  
_

_Scale: A retelling of the Little Mermaid. Scale only knows one thing: the tank. She has lived there for as long as she can remember. She has done all the tests and tricks the scientists asked her to do. She will serve her queen no matter what. Living as a chimera experiment, similar to Wolf, on Luna, Scale never thought she would leave that room. But the promise of freedom from a beautiful scientist leads her on a tragic adventure. (Coverart finished, not posted)_


End file.
